The present invention relates to an apparatus to be used in particular for removing confectionery products from pouring dies carried by a feeding conveyor and for transferring them to and depositing them into confectionery boxes or onto a receiving conveyor belt feeding a wrapping machine.
Devices for removing confectionery items from forming or pouring dies and depositing them subsequently into packaging boxes are already known.
A known device comprises essentially two sets of prehensile elements cooperating with two parallel conveyor belts, the two sets of prehensile elements being arranged so that one set removed by means of suckers the products from the respective forming dies to pass them to the second set which deposits the products into packaging boxes. These known prehensile elements thus follow an oscillating movement between a center line and, respectively, the die carrying belt and the packaging box carrying belt.
A first drawback of this known device is given by the fact that the oscillating motion required by the prehensile elements makes it difficult to adapt the product removing and depositing speed to that required by modern wrapping and packaging machines, operating a high speeds capable to wrap and package, for instance, up to 300 chocolate bars in one minute.
A further drawback of the known device lies in the fact that the conveyor belts have to be arranged in the same plane and, preferably, parallel one to the other, so that it becomes impossible to transfer the items between a first belt and a second belt lying on different levels, with the second belt running, for example, perpendicularly to the first belt carrying the forming dies.